“The High-Power Lesbian” Trope in 2024
by Laoise-Edel
The 'high-power lesbian' trope was placed in the spotlight in the early 2000s, with the Sex and the City episode 'The One with the Power Lesbians' and, more prominently, through multiple characters in The L Word. This trope took form in the iconic and messy Bette Porter, who embodied a vision of queer women as powerful, confident, commanding, and at times desperately trying to get their ex back. The image of the high-power lesbian wearing sharp suits, having flawless hair, and the ability to hold a presence in any meeting room is well and truly owned by Bette Porter. She is the blueprint of the high-powered lesbian. Bettes's personification of the trope has given queer people not only outfit inspiration: from job interviews to nights out but an image of how they could be in professional settings. Despite The L Word ending in 2009,the trope of the high-powered lesbian lives on. After all, who doesn’t love a woman in a suit in charge?
What makes this representation important is that it isn’t just about visibility but empowerment for queer women. Characters like Bette Porter gave queer women then and now something to aspire to. Although Bette is no saint in the show, she offers an image of success, independence, and style that illustrates how queer women could be and thrive in positions of power. Thankfully this trope has continued past the early 2000s, allowing queer women to see themselves reflected on screen in more realistic and nuanced ways.
Take Lena Waithe's role as Denise in Master of None for example. Her character is more laid back than Bette. However, she still embodies all that the high power lesbian trope is in 2024, with amazing style, career drive, and being unapologetically, joyfully lesbian. Denise taking center stage in season three as a central character is important as you watch the character navigate her marriage, life after becoming a best-selling author, and their inner conflicts (no spoilers, I promise). Lena Waithe summarises the importance of her character best in the intro video Master of None S3 | A Special Look: Denise as it's “not just about queer black people seeing themselves but it’s about queer black people feeling as if they can be complex too.” Denise throughout the show displays a rich life full of love, deep connections, and success all while being visibly queer and authentically themselves.
This trope is further exemplified in Sense8’s character Nomi Marks, a trans lesbian hacker, played by Jamie Clayton. Nomi is undoubtedly a high-power lesbian. Her character arc displays her overcoming societal and familial rejection by living authentically. She subverts stereotypes by being a fully developed queer character, who is not only great at their job but someone who deals with the complexities of being trans and a lesbian all while having a loving supporting relationship.
What makes a “high power lesbian” in 2024, and what I’ve personally always seen it as, is the character's ability to take up space and have presence within themselves which is then reflected back into the rooms they’re in. Characters like Bette, Denise, and Nomi are important examples of this representation as viewers see queer women taking up space, they see parts of themselves within the characters, they see a potential future and what it could look like. Lesbian visibility in series offers a place for queer viewers to relate but more importantly, hope. It shows that living authentically may be difficult at times but worth the joy, pride, and love it brings.
Four Years Gone, One Weekend to Find Us
By Dani Lovera Teixeira
It was Friday morning, before the August Bank Holiday, when you called me to ask me about my plans that night. I was confused and distracted. I knew you were asking for a reason but I couldn’t stop thinking how long it had been since we last saw each other. I refrained from saying that so I settled on “I have dinner plans with some friends. - I paused - I'm free the rest of the weekend”. I added that to let you know I would make time for you.
Little did I know that weekend was going to stay with me forever. You failed to tell me, during our phone call, that for the first time in four years you were back in our hometown, for good.
At 7 pm that evening I met my friends in town. We hadn’t seen each other in a while. Summer holidays and all that. The meal went long. We were all laughing out loud and talking, stretching the time to order dessert.
Our table was on the opposite side of the front door. I was sitting with my back to it. I was engaged in the conversation around me, when I felt a weird anticipation in my stomach. My body knew something else was going on, I couldn't ignore the feeling for long.
I heard your laugh first, your perfume was a close second. Even from afar I could smell your hair and your skin. I turned my head to the door and saw you walk in. I froze. I looked for you through the crowd and you found my gaze like a magnet.
I got nervous and my mind was rushing. My friends have only heard of you but never met you and likewise, I haven't met any of yours. From behind you, like an out of focus shot, I saw their piercing eyes staring back at me. They knew who I was and why you were there.
Your body turned when we locked eyes. Your smile was bright and without hesitation you started to walk in my direction. I was so stunned and overcome with joy that I barely managed to say “excuse me” to the people around me. I stood quickly but couldn't move. I kept looking at you. Smiling, happy to see me, moving forward.
A little taken aback, my friend Amy tried to follow my abrupt reaction. I held her hand and squeezed, as hard as I could, so she'd know it was you. She understood and very kindly patted me on the side of my leg so I would move. Finally I did and met you 3/4 of the way. I wanted to say hi before introducing you to anyone. Amy kept her sight on us, alert, waiting.
My heart was beating in my mouth. Your long hair was bouncing to the rhythm of your walk. The noise of the busy restaurant went mute. My smile was wide and as I shook my head in disbelief, I pinched myself, it was you walking towards me, like no one else was around. We mouthed “Hi” to each other, stretched our arms and we hugged. You wrapped your arms on top of my shoulders and I held you tight by the waist. Your hair was down and so was mine and as it has been in the past we quickly built our little shelter underneath it to sneak a peck on the neck. The softness of your skin and the smell of your skin transported me back to stolen afternoons in the back seat of your car listening to Fiona Apple and Amy Whinehouse.
We held hands and smiled at each other. For a fraction it was just us. Then my brain played that questioning voice I was too familiar with “is everyone looking at us?” I snapped back at that voice: “I really don’t care, let them watch”. The only thing that mattered is that 4 years passed and we were finally face to face.
I lost the capacity to put sentences together, I didn’t know what to say “I'm thrilled to see you" I chose. You smiled so big I was blinded. Took my hands to your lips, kissed them and let them go at last.
Like a woman on a mission you said suddenly. “I'm ordering drinks for everyone at my table, come to the bar with me”. You acknowledged the stare coming from behind me, as if to say to my friend Amy, “I'm taking her for a moment”. I had forgotten there were other people around us. I turned to her and mouthed “it's Ok”. I felt swooned. We walked to the bar, holding each other by the waist so closely I could feel on my lips the air around yours.
Untitled
By Tia Weldon
Being seventeen brought with it many new prospects into my life. Feeling the rapid ascent into adulthood, a tidal wave of academic pressure over the Leaving Certificate, and a particularly strong connection to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”, I couldn’t fathom how my last remaining teenage year could be any less challenging or daunting.
And then I got asked out by a female friend of mine.
“I like you, romantically” is what I read in a love letter, received in combination with a gaudy, over-sized collage with indulgent Taylor Swift lyricism before this girl bolted out of the building. I was left startled and nauseated as the reality of the situation dawned on me. I had been asked out...for the first time ever...and I felt nothing short of repulsed. I had always known I was queer in some shape or other. The labels I used to describe myself warped and contorted over the years before I had settled on the term “lesbian”. As Chappell Roan put it, “boys suck, and girls I’ve never tried”, and I explained away my total disinterest with sex or romance with men with understanding that I only could feel attraction to women.
Yet, here I was, freaking out and hyperventilating, over the romance that had been thrust upon me by a girl. I fundamentally did not want this relationship. And in that shortmoment, my identity, stagnant as it had been for years at this stage of my life, shattered in an instant. The quiet comfort of having something concrete tethered to my understanding of myself was no more.
Not long after I realised I was aromantic. Not aromatic, like smelling like a rich, fragrant soup, but aromantic. Defined as “having little to no romantic attraction to other people”, indeed like a rich, fragrant soup, being aromantic simply means you don’t desire romance to the same degree as much of hetero-society or much of queer society. For me, this new truth meant vomiting and ten-months of bullying. A truly turbulent state of affairs.
When people find out I’m aromantic, sometimes they are put off by it and confused. I understand why. Amatonormativity is rife everywhere, from movies and tv shows to real life. There’s this tacit implication that in order to achieve happiness and fulfilment, you need to find someone to fill the ambiguous role of “the one”. This person will kiss you, fuck you, and maybe you’ll share a spaghetti noodle together, and this will solve all your problems, their problems, and humanity’s problems.
However, people don’t need to be confused, confuzzled, or even bamboozled. Being aromantic is simply an area of queerness just as is being asexual, polyamorous, or anything else. Breaking the boundaries of what defines normality in a cisgender andheterosexual society will always be a valid form of queerness and I hold so much joy in my heart for my aromanticism.
My friendships are stronger in the knowledge that emotional vulnerability is not something that needs to be confined in a locked box where only one person owns the key. I tell my friends I love them, and I mean every single word, and know they do too. Friends who understand that an exclusionary comprehension of queerness fails to address the nuances of human connection. Platonic love is the ultimate queer connection.
My identity as a woman has been deeply impacted by aromanticism. We are expected to crave romance just as much as we are supposed to crave the colour pink, pregnancy, and small puppies in even smaller bags. The idea that women must adhere to these expectations severs our connection to ourselves. Being aromantic showed me that I can define womanhood on my own terms. Throwing outdated dictionary definitions and stereotypes in the bin, all queer women are defining identity for themselves, and not what people force upon us.
I love myself for I am my own soulmate. Sue Sylvester had the right idea of marriage. You’ll always be alongside yourself, so you might as well learn to cherish yourself. I treat the woman I am with the respect, care, and compassion that I know I deserve. There are no preconceived ideas of how this relationship with myself can or should be, and I adore that.
Labels can change and fluctuate, and maybe I won’t be aromantic in the future. Ultimately, labels are only as helpful as the person using them feels that they are. Queerness is a beautiful and everlasting thing, and being aromantic is only one form of it. So sorry to Taylor Swift, but sometimes we don’t need an endgame. We just need ourselves.